November 27, 2013 – Revelations 11 – 12

I understand you can’t take Revelations literally, but just try for a second.  Two prophets proclaim God for 42 months.  They do so in the middle east, so likely they would start in danger, but appear invulnerable.  And that would be the story at the start.  Likely that many would flock to them and become believers.  But 42 months is almost 4 years.  In our day and age, people don’t have the stomach to wait that long.  So, people get tired of listening, tired of following, the news coverage lessons, until the one day when, somehow, these two are killed.  And the killing leads to a huge celebration, proof that God is not real, cannot save you, a celebration in secularism.  Their bodies lay there.  3 ½ days is short enough that the coverage continues.  Then they are alive, are taken up, and an earthquake comes and destroys most of the place they are at.  I just picture watching it happen on CNN.

I would imagine there are 10,000 interpretations of the woman and the dragon and this scene.  I was thinking, reading it this time, that Christ is born into the world and when He is crucified, Satan believes He has won.  He waits to devour the child (Christ) but He defeats death and sin and ascends into Heaven, out of the jaws of the dragon.  The woman (Mary) is protected from the dragon (sin/satan) and taken into the dessert (Heaven).

There is also the interpretation that the woman is the Catholic Church.  You get a sense of where that comes from towards the end of chapter 12.  The woman is protected from the dragon and serpent (Catholic Church’s teaching on faith and morals are infallible and the fullness of Truth) but the dragon does battle with her other offspring (those of the Church over the centuries).